News alert from American Academy of Pediatrics :

“Bones are like a bank account and from children’s early years through the teen years it’s the most important time to make deposits of calcium so that bones can handle the withdrawals that occur later in life,” said Jean Ragalie, R.D., vice president of nutrition communications for the National Dairy Council.

Our children need enough calcium for stronger bones. Unfortunately, according to national nutrition surveys show that most teen girls and almost half of teen boys are not getting the recommended amount of calcium they need.

How much calcium does my child need?

The following are the recommended amounts of calcium a child should have every day.

• 1 to 3 years 500 mg About 1 milk group servings per day

• 4 to 8 years 800 mg About 2 milk group servings per day

• 9 to 18 years 1,300 mg About 3 milk group servings per day

In order to have a quick review, just follow this link you can find more useful information about calcium including:

• Why is calcium so important?
• What dairy foods are good sources of calcium?
• Aren’t dairy products too high in fat to be healthy?
• What if my child can’t or won’t eat dairy foods?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 9:49 pm and is filed under 05-12 yrs: Schooler, 13-18 yrs: Teenager, Health & Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.